In order to keep the technology competitive for ten years and beyond, both Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) and 3GPP2 are considering long term evolution (LTE), in which evolution of radio interface and network architecture are necessary.
In wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA) high speed uplink packet access (HSUPA), (Release 6), dedicated control channel, (or prescheduled grant for control), is used. Due to the IP-based nature of E-UTRA, no dedicated control channel may be maintained for the uplink. The scheduling request mechanism needs to be designed properly to minimize scheduling overhead without much degradation of the performance, (such as delay).